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Sunday, September 19, 2010

(not quite) Permaculture Pasture Improvement: Part 2

It was way back in the beginning of April when I posted Part 1 and promised to “report how the new grass fares.” Well, I didn’t report and the grass didn’t fare but, for a change, it’s not my fault; I blame Iceland!

To recap and then cut the rest of a long story short: Last year’s pigs went to slaughter at the end of November. It was way too late to sow grass. As we didn’t want the soil to be bare over winter, our farming neighbour Paul suggested trying oats. We were even a touch too late for that and it didn’t get away (as his had done) but provided plenty of free food to wild birds and our roaming flock of chickens.

There was nothing else to do other than be patient and await a sun-warmed soil sometime in spring to get our chance to sow grass. We had a longer-than-usual winter and it was April before we had the conditions we needed. We sowed. It rained. The seeds germinated. Then we had a long and unexpected dry spell. The monthly average is 54 mm of rain (just over 2 inches) but we only had 16 in our pluviomètre, 12 of which fell on one day, with a rain gap of 25 dry days. So those tiny germinated seeds never got another drop of rain and died. I heard on BBC Radio 4 (therefore it must be true!) that this was due to the Icelandic volcano: all that material spewed out was creating a high pressure that was keeping rain-bearing low pressure systems away from Europe.

Now the oats sown back in November that hadn’t got away, had been turned in by the harrowing and rolling while sowing the doomed grass seed. And for some reason, they profited from the gap created by the grass no-show and we ended up with a crop of oats. Not at all what we planned but useful nevertheless as I cropped that petit à petit with my scythe and fed it to our sheep and pigs who were on very dry pasture due to a dry summer (not Iceland this time but the jet stream not functioning correctly)

This year, our pigs are in a different paddock and arrived here earlier, so are about to leave us. I wanted to plough and re-seed their paddock and also hoped to do the large field but was trying to balance that with the winter pasture needs of our sheep. So, having just facilitated the departure of some English guests at our neighbour’s gite, I accepted the offer of a cup of coffee from Paul and Christiane and we talked grass. A good two months earlier than last year and still it was apparently “presque” too late to sow grass, another two weeks was definitely not on. Pondering this later, I decided to ask Paul to help me re-sow the big field. I’ve used some poultry netting to fence off another area and the sheep can also make use of the pig paddock, which I’ll tackle in spring.

This is where any permacultural purists might disagree with my use of industrial pig poo and the plough. The use of the plough is generally thought to be a permaculture no-no due the loss by oxidization of organic matter. However, our soil is heavy clay and really needs to be broken up. Perhaps we could have achieved that with a sub-soiler but we also need a fine tilth to sow the tiny grass seeds, so Paul carefully manoeuvred his very big tractor around our very small (in modern agricultural terms) field. The first thing he did though, was to spray the field with lisier a slurry of pig excrement from his farm. As with many things, in industrial quantities it can become a pollutant. We needed to add some sort of fertility, don’t want to buy and apply chemical fertilisers and don’t have enough animal manure of our own to add, so a one-off application seemed the pragmatic thing to do.

The sequence of events was:• Pig poo• Rotating harrow (to bread up turfs)• Plough• Harrow (now we had a fine tilth)• Hand sow (half the amount across, the other half side-to-side)• Harrow (a lighter one towed behind the old Massey to just bury the seeds)• Roller (to press the seeds into contact with the soil)• Beer.It’s due to rain on Thursday and we’ll be hoping for a few more warm days to germinate the seed. The plants should get away better in spring, having had the opportunity to establish themselves before winter takes hold.

I had some seed left over from the bag I bought from the German lady (see Part 1) and I have also a “Herbal” Dual Purpose Four Year Ley from Cotswold Grass Seeds. Mixed together, what I sowed was:several varieties of ryegrasses, fescues and clovers, along with cocksfoot, meadow grass, Timothy grass, ribgrass, meadow foxtail, golden oat grass, sainfoin, birdsfoot trefoil, black medick, chicory, burnet, yarrow and sheep’s parsley. If all goes to plan, we’re looking forward to an attractive field with a better biodiversity and very happy sheep.

STOP PRESS : Please click below and have a read of the comments, particularly the last two. Alan and Val have taken us to task about our approach. We've another paddock to re-sow after the pigs leave us next Monday, which is an ideal opportunity to try a different and altogether more permaculture approach to improving the pasture.

6 comments
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HI Stuartwe used the four year fertility ley from Cotswold and it does produce loads of material and good grazing although the sheep are not that keen on the Cocksfoot. we used it in our vegetable rotation but found the chicory too persistent. Incorporating it was hard work.

A useful tip if it gets late for sowing green manure or grass we found that grazing rye from Cotswold Seeds will germinate when everything else doesn't as late as end Sept here so possibly Oct or Nov where you are. Then at least you are not loosing nutrients over the winter.

Hi Phil,Thanks for the reassurance that I've sown the right stuff and the advice on grazing rye. We're due some rain on Thursday and some warm days thereafter, so I shall look forward to seeing some green shoots in what is currently a bare field.

HelloAs you know I am always sceptical of reseeding with seeds of foreign type to the area and prefer seeds of local provenance as they have spent years in the locality and are often more tolerant of the micro climate! Pete being an ecologist and very keen on his flora and fauna is too!So I would say try this as I know it works..you could try it in addition to your seeds!Go and beg borrow or steal(!)some bales of good local hay, preferably from some old person with traditional fields who made it in May/June during the blistering heat. Some very good hay was made this year albeit not a lot!Take said bales and sprinkle them all over your land to be seeded shaking well.Do it preferably just before a forecast of several days of heavy rain either now or in March. I can guarentee some lovely grass as the stalks provide a rotting thin mulch to keep in the moisture! Ok some may blow all over but most will rot down providing a lot of mulch and a little extra umph! Trust me ;-)

I don't understand the excessive plowing and disking. The soil looks pulverized beyond life.

Permiculture? Not what I learned...

We use soil ammendments like calcium to deal with tight clay and mostly frost seed new grasses. That combinied with a tight two day rotational grazing plan has really improved our pasture and our soil sturcture over the past few years.

Done is done, but I'd love to discuss some other options for the future...